Grosjean set to tone-down radio messages following critical Haas comments

Romain Grosjean is set to change the way he communicates with his team over the radio - Credit: Octane Photographic Ltd

Haas F1 Team driver Romain Grosjean is set to tone down his radio messages to his team as they may be misinterpreted, with the Frenchman having been highly critical of his car at times this season.

In recent races, Grosjean has been very vocal about the cars poor performance, the Frenchman has been told to change his approach to radio communication in the race.

Speaking to Autosport, Grosjean says that he’ll “probably try to be a little bit more quiet” from now on.

“I’m passionate. I’m not a Finn and very calm, I’m more a Latin guy,” said Grosjean. “But I think I’m a nice guy and everyone knows it, and if I’m pushing it’s because I’m pushing myself and I want to push everyone in the same way.

“I’ve tried to back off, because it was playing on TV and people who don’t know me think it’s wrong. Is there a microphone in the middle of a football game? A tennis court? We are a sport where there is a microphone.

In every sport where you are maxed out, adrenaline is at its max, you are focused and you are into it. During a judo game, if you read the lips of the guy, they’re not saying: ‘well done, I’m going to get you in the next one’. They respect their competitor, but they are like: ‘I’m going to kill you’.”

Grosjean admits that Haas have been slow to react to problems that occur in the race, which has prompted his outbursts on the radio.

“Like Monza – we were over-stressing the front tyres in the first stint a lot, so after the race we found ‘that’s what we should have done’,” he said. “It’s too late, but you know it for the next time.

“It’s very hard to get a read on the data straight away and come back to the drivers. Most of the time we need to reprocess the data after the session, so it can take up to two hours to find out the balance.”